The Mars Volta front man Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s directorial debut, The Sentimental Engine Slayer, brings a fresh and bold voice into this year’s lineup. Rodriguez-Lopez not only wrote and directed the film, but also stars in the dynamic and challenging leading role.

The Sentimental Engine Slayer is the story of a young man and his family in El Paso, Texas. Told in twists, turns, visions, and nightmares that blur the narrative lines completely, the experimental story knows no bounds. Rodriguez-Lopez’s character, Barlam, is grappling to figure himself out, and the audience experiences his world through his eyes. Anxious moments on screen speed up, images flip upside down, voices are garbled, and rules are broken as we go on the journey through Barlam’s eyes.

The film’s experimental and unique voice is exciting and at times, enlightening. At the premiere on Thursday night, the movie had the audience laughing, awed and bewildered, as it challenged the audience to approach the film from an unusual angle. As Barlam changes, progresses, and questions his life, we go on a nightmarish, psychedelic journey with him. One that keeps one’s eyes fixed on the screen in awe, wondering what to make of this world he creates, complete with a different sound for each character and music that creates a firm beat and rhythm for chaos.

When asked why he turned to film after making music for so long, Rodriguez-Lopez replied, “It’s all the same: film, cooking, music, making love… It all comes from the same place.  It’s about learning about yourself and those around you. It’s about growing.” The Sentimental Engine Slayer was a deep dip into Rodriguez-Lopez’s psyche, where he unearthed a recurring nightmare of a gruesome murder and decided to get it out and depict it on film. Since then, he says the nightmare has gone away completely. For him, film is “personal and therapeutic.”
The film was very personal, as it includes a few of his family members and shooting took place in his home in El Paso. Rodriguez-Lopez invited cast and crew to stay there for a month, sharing cooking duties, sleeping on the floor, and totally committing to making a visionary and unique film that required complete abandon to the art. The film, which was written linearly, took many different courses in the editing room until Rodriguez-Lopez decided to surrender to what it became.

The film’s voice is its own—a treat for cinephiles longing for an experimental, artistic world of wonder, where conversations and moments don’t have to make perfect sense, stories don’t have to be linear, and the boundaries of filmmaking can grow and evolve.

Find out when and where you can catch The Sentimental Engine Slayer at the Tribeca Film Festival!

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